Back on Campus

Wow wow wow, where do I even begin? Our week long break was awesome! We have done so much in this past week, that I'm scared I'm not going to even remember it all. After we left last Thursday, we spent a night in San Jose and then got picked up from our hotel early Friday morning for our rafting trip, which has been my favorite thing in Costa Rica so far. 

We arrived at the rafting camp, ate breakfast, and had to pack a little bag because our trip was overnight. We got on another bus and rode to the beginning of the river to start rafting! Our luggage even came with us on a raft because we were spending the night on the river. I was a little scared to raft because I had a bad rafting experience on a Young Life trip where I fell out and floated down the river freaking out because of all the rocks. There were 5 Costa Rican guys as our guides and they were all really funny. We stopped along the river to take little hikes to waterfalls or to jump off rocks and eat watermelon and pineapple. After about 2 hours of rafting, we arrived at where we would be staying overnight, which was complete paradise. There were a bunch of tiny little cabins with 2 twin beds and no walls, just mosquito nets and a little curtain. We could see and hear the river from where we slept! The guides unloaded all the luggage and food from the rafts and cooked us an awesome lunch. We were in paradise! The rest of the day, we chilled in hammocks and read or sat in the sun, just relaxing. The food was the best I have had in Costa Rica, those guys could cook! The next morning, we left for about 3 more hours of rafting and stopped again along the way at waterfalls. I think I have seen at least 7 different waterfalls here in Costa Rica, all beautiful! I think the rafting trip has been my favorite part of Costa Rica so far.

Alyssa, me & Jessica getting ready to raft!

The river was beautiful!

Alyssa & me all geared up!

Our cute little room!

Our paradise!

The bar

Our awesome lunch

Another awesome waterfall. Notice the people in the background climbing up :)

Us with our guide, Esteban!

The river!

After the river trip, we headed back to San Jose and from there, left for our beach trip to Montezuma. It was just us students going and we really had no idea what we were doing. We had to leave the hotel at 4:30am to catch a  6:00 public bus and the taxis we called to come to the hotel never came so we were already off to a rocky start! It took 6 hours to get to Montezuma and we had to change buses 3 times and get on a ferry while also keeping up with our luggage so it wouldn't get stolen...it was pretty nerve wracking! When we finally got to Montezuma, it was about 90 degrees and HUMID! We found our hostel and got settled in. Our hostel was owned by recent college graduates from Colorado who had studied abroad and decided to open a hostel after graduation. There were howler monkeys everywhere! It was one of the coolest things I have seen. We saw families of them walking in trees and the sound they make is ridiculous. They woke us up around 6am every morning! We went to the beach everyday, hiked to a waterfall one day, and a couple girls got surf lessons. The water was beautiful and of course I bought about 2 ice cream cones a day. Most of us did not want to spend money on food so we bought a ton of peanut butter before we left and survived the 4 days on peanut butter sandwiches. But, one night the people at our hostel were making sushi so we learned how to make it and roll it which I plan to do for dinner a lot when I get back. It was pretty easy! 

When we got back to San Jose, all we wanted to do was sit in an air conditioned room and watch TV. I think we were all pretty beat. We left the room to go to McDonalds and also to get ice cream, which was perfect!  Now we are back on campus and our second session of classes have started. We transfer to our home stays Wednesday and I am pretty sure that I will be at the same one, so that's exciting! Oh and today was cool because this morning, we got to go to a local elementary school and teach a lesson about the skeletal system! 


That's all for now, Adios!

Hi! I don't have much time but river rafting here was AWESOME!! The place we stayed at overnight was so incredible and almost impossible to describe. We all had such a blast. We are in San jose now and leaving on a public bus tomorrow at 6am for montezuma. We will be at the beach for 4 days. I can't wait. I will update more next week when I get back to campus.

Pura Vida!

Martes

Wow, we are so so lucky in the United States... on so many levels. Being here just makes me appreciative of all that I have, but it also makes me realize that living more simple is really the way to go. People here are just so content and happy and they have no want or need for all the "things" we have.. it's nuts. Anyway, today is our last day of classes, so I have two pretty big exams tomorrow and a big paper due. But Thursday, we leave for San Jose and go river rafting on the way there. We do not come back here to campus in San Luis until February 19. We have a little 5 day spring break, so we are all going to go to the beach in Montezuma. I can't wait to be at the beach!!

The weekend was really fun. Saturday, we went zip lining and although it was drizzling the whole time, we still had a blast. I have been zip lining in North Georgia before, but it is way cooler here! All you can see when you are in the air is an abyss of green trees. I wish I could've taken pictures while I was actually doing it because it was so beautiful. The guys who worked at the place were really funny because every time we would go up to them to get buckled in, they would say "Hi Lady!" in a funny accent and when they pushed us off "Bye-Bye Lady!" ...it was hilarious. At the end, we got to do a "Tarzan Swing" where we basically got to jump off a 26 foot tree and swing for a while...it was SO fun! It made me want to bungee jump (don't freak out mom). The last zip line was awesome... you got to go with a partner and we were leaned back the whole time, so it was kind of like we were laying down floating in the air, and it was a kilometer long! After zip lining, we got to eat lunch in town in Santa Elena and it was nice to have a cheeseburger, even though it still tasted a little different.

Getting ready to zipline

Saturday night was REALLY fun! We got to go out and go salsa dancing in Santa Elena! A bunch of the Costa Rican staff here at UGA came out with us and it was fun to dance with everyone! There were stray dogs running around in the bar and the American music they played was really funny just because most of it was so old. Alyssa and me salsa danced a lot and just walked around and messed with people who were dancing, it was hilarious. 

Me, Hannah, Alyssa and Lauren ready to go dancing!

Me and Alyssa- my awesome roomie

Christine, Lauren, me, Jessica & Alyssa

Alyssa, Jenier & me... he works in the kitchen

Everyone dancing.. the guy with the vest is Lucas, he is the gardener here

We are very serious about our salsa dancing- look at that concentration

Sunday was fun... four of us endured the beautiful 40 minute walk to the river... here are some pictures:

View on the way

Jessica, Alyssa & Christine- just look at the scenery!

el rio

Alyssa & me goofing around on the rocks

muchas piedras

Futbol has been a blast as usual... I scored a goal yesterday and also bruised the top of my foot  pretty bad because I accidentally kicked someone in the shin...whoops. He was bleeding too... who knew I had a steel foot? Maybe I should have played soccer all along :) (Chris, watch out when I get back... we will play some 1 on 1) This week has just been busy with school work because we are wrapping up the first session.. time is just flying by way too fast here. I can't even believe that it is already February. Again, I miss everyone, but I already know that I will be sad to leave Costa Rica. It makes me realize how much I want to travel in my life and go experience new cultures. I have already planned a sweet European backpacking trip in my head for next summer. Who's down to come? Anyway, it's about time for lunch. Pura Vida

Weekend!

I can't believe another week here has flown by! It has been relatively cold here this week (more in the 70's than the 80's), but hey I am NOT complaining! Yesterday after class, Ashley, Alyssa and I endured the 2 hour hike to go to the waterfall again. I cannot get enough of that waterfall. It is absolutely breathtaking. I could just sit and stare at it for like an hour. So many things here in Costa Rica are reflective of God's beauty...all the rainbows, the waterfall, the people..it's awesome.

Today, we walked to the elementary school here in San Luis and brought the kids back here to do an activity with them as part of our field experience class. I worked with Lucy, Diego & Cecilia. We walked around campus and up the trails a little bit to collect all sorts of plants and then made a mosiac art project with all the flowers and leaves we had collected. The kids are all so sweet and so eager and excited to work with us.

I think we are all excited that the weekend here. Tonight, I think we are going to walk to the store and buy cokes and popcorn for an outdoor movie night. There's this outdoor classroom here where you can set up a projector and also there's a fireplace so we are going to try to find some marshmallows. AND we also have more dance lessons with Geovanny. Saturday, we are leaving at 7 to go zip lining and then going out that night to go salsa dancing for one of the girl's birthdays. Those dance lessons are going to pay off :) I'm excited! Sunday morning, we have Spanish class because we missed a day this week and then the rest of the day free. And soon, we will be at the beach!! I can't wait!!

The SCORPION!

Side Note...

I realize I'm not the best writer and my thought process skips around a lot, so if anyone has questions about life here or whatever, feel free to email me at ElizEcon@uga.edu  :)

service rotations, scorpions & soccer

It's nice to be back on campus. Mainly because now I can actually carry on a conversation with someone for longer than five minutes. I feel like when  I speak Spanish, I have a whole different personality. I am more shy and I just smile and nod a lot. 

Days go by so fast here. We only have a week more of class until our "spring break." We have about 6 days off before we start our second session of classes. We are basically taking two Maymesters, but some classes are both like Spanish and our field experience class. For the break, I think we are splitting up into 2 groups and going to the beach. We are looking at a place called Montezuma, which is more on the southwest side of Costa Rica. I am excited to be a beach bum for a couple of days! Right before the break, we go river rafting on our way to San Jose, which will be exciting as well. It's awesome that we even have a spring break, because our semester is way shorter than normal.

This week has gone by fast, but has been fun. On Monday, we had service rotations for our field experience class. Alyssa and me were assigned with maintenance and raked leaves for an hour and a half with two guys that work here. I like doing the service rotations because again, it forces you to speak Spanish to whoever you are working with. We talk mostly about our families and always learn new words. Again, everyone here is so nice and it's really cool to walk around campus and be able to say "Hola" when you pass all these people that you have worked with. For our field experience class today, we went to a paper making factory called Ecobambu to help the ladies make bags and sit and talk with more Costa Ricans. That is one of my favorite classes because we get to interact with people so much. 

Gross story... last night, I took a shower late and my other two room mates were asleep. The lights were off, so I was carrying around a flashlight before getting into bed. BUT, when I shone the light on my bed, I saw a HUGE scorpion!! I tried not to freak out, but it was disgusting! I looked up on the top bunk and woke up Alyssa. We didn't know if we should smush it or what and we were just so repulsed by it and scared that there might be more. We ended up just putting a glass over it... and then we couldn't sleep. It was almost midnight at that point... the latest I have stayed up in a LONG time. I definitely wasn't going to sleep in my bed and although there was an extra top bunk, we decided to squeeze together in the top bunk of a twin bed because we were freaked out. We watched The Office on my ipod until we fell asleep...it was hilarious. And surprisingly, we both slept well even though we were two people squeezed in a tiny little bed. Needless to say, we will be checking our beds for scorpions EVERY night!

THE SCORPION! EWWW

We have played A LOT of futbol lately! Apparently it's rainbow season in Costa Rica now so in the middle of playing, we saw the MOST amazing rainbow overhead..it was a full arc and SO beautiful. I think we are all getting better at soccer. I can't ever kick the ball straight so I decided that I am only going to play defense. The guy who works in the kitchen and gives us dance lessons, Geovanny, plays with us also and he was trying to teach me how to control my kicks today... it was pretty funny. 

 Today was great because I got to Skype my parents and Chris.. I'm glad it worked because the internet is so iffy here...especially when it is windy! OH one more thing, we had SPAGHETTI for dinner! It was awesome...a great change from the usual menu. And, we are going zip lining this weekend...WOOP!

PURA VIDA!